There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the challenges and isolation experienced when attempting to influence the future significantly.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. expresses the loneliness that can accompany the aspiration to shape the future or play a significant role in it, likening such ambition to a divine responsibility. The metaphor of 'playing God' suggests that those who desire to guide or control the course of events may encounter solitude, as their aspirations and the burden of responsibility can separate them from others.
Themes
LonelinessFutureGuidanceResponsibilityInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech emphasizing the importance of leadership and foresight.
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
All quotes βOn the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
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To think that only faultless people are worthwhile seems like an incredible exclusion of almost everything of deep value in the human saga. Sometimes I can't believe the narrowness that has been attributed to God in terms of what he would approve and disapprove.
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